


I Surrender

by BrooklynBugleBoy



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Brother-Sister Relationships, Child Abuse, Family, Found Family, Gen, Genderswap, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Roger Feels, Rogerina - Freeform, give him a hug, terrible childhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-25 03:34:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16653508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrooklynBugleBoy/pseuds/BrooklynBugleBoy
Summary: Rogerina Meadow Taylor didn't need anyone. Didn't love anyone.She grew up with bloody fists and jellied blood congealing in her mouth, gluing her jaw shut.She made a place for herself in a world that didn't want her.She never expected to find three boys who did."Her father, not that he’d ever appreciated her usage of the term or anywhere near deserved it, had always wanted a son.Upon her birth, he’d looked at her in disgust and given her a ‘feminine’ twist on the male name they’d already chosen. Perhaps Punchbag had thought that he may one day love their daughter, if she agreed. Fat chance. But dearest mother always did believe in miracles.‘Maybe he’d never bash my face in again.’ ‘Maybe I won’t have to pretend to be deaf and blind when he hurts my daughters again.’ ‘Maybe, maybe, maybe…Roger didn’t deal in maybes."





	I Surrender

**Author's Note:**

> Note: Fictional Characters based on the movie and these thing never happened. Duh. 
> 
> Also featured is Roger's song Surrender. The inspiration for Rogerina's backstory. :( 
> 
> Wrote this because I couldn't sleep. Was supposed to be a cute one-shot but alas. I am an angst writer through and through :) <3

_“Same cycle happen every day_  
_Same characters same play_  
_My game plan's become clear_  
_Gotta find a way out of here_

 _There ain't no place to run_  
_No welcome mat in my home_  
_No love here, no life_  
_He want a punchbag, not a wife_

 _You can't hurt me now_  
_You can't hurt me now_  
_You can't hurt me now, I'm gone from you_  
_…You can't reach me where I've gone to_  
_I surrender…”_

-Roger Taylor “ _Surrender_ ”

 

_Rogerina Meadow Taylor._

She remembered writing it on the chalkboard as a little girl and crying bitterly with her back turned, silently of course, when everyone made fun of her for it _-what kind of name is that for a girl?_ \- gritting her teeth as hot angry tears dripped onto her handmade starchy dress.

They complimented the blood droplets on the collar rather well.

She told everyone that the blood on her lapels was because she’d tripped and hit the door hinge as she was leaving the house that morning.

She never mentioned the drunk man’s hand fisted in her forever-tangled blonde hair that had violently guided it there.

Her father, not that he’d ever appreciated her usage of the term or anywhere near deserved it, had always wanted a son.

Upon her birth, he’d looked at her in disgust and given her a ‘feminine’ twist on the male name they’d already chosen. Perhaps _Punchbag_ had thought that he may one day love their daughter, if she agreed. _Fat chance._ But dearest mother always did believe in miracles. _‘Maybe he’d never bash my face in again.’ ‘Maybe I won’t have to pretend to be deaf and blind when he hurts my daughters again.’ ‘Maybe, maybe, maybe…”_

Roger didn’t deal in _maybes._

She wrote _Rogerina Meadow Taylor_ on the chalkboard in front of her class when the substitute teacher didn’t believe her about the spelling and thought she was was taking the piss.

Then she broke the nose of a boy who teased her about it on the playground.

_“Hateful little bitch!”_

She’d screamed at him.

_“Worthless little cow!”_

_“Go rot in hell!”_

_“I’ll send you back to your Maker if you don’t shut your bleeding gob!”_

He was crying.

She realized then, that she’d screamed _his_ daily insults at an innocent boy. Who’d simply tugged on her hair and said her name sounded funny. She had his blood on her hands, the same way _he_ so often had _hers_ on _his_. She ran to puke in a dustbin.

 _Rogerina Meadow Taylor_ carried a make-believe name on her shoulders.

She preferred to be _Roger._ At least that name was real enough, her father’s dream.

_(Would he have beaten a Roger? Shoved him down until he could taste his own coppery blood mixed with the wiry carpet clumps beneath their feet? Kicked him with a steel-toed work boot, hard enough that his ribs snapped like matchsticks and his kidneys would be so bloody pummeled that he’d get recurrent infections all his life due to the damage? Called him The Boy as his name. Just like Rogerina was The Girl, and after Clare was born, The Little Cow or Stupid Little Cow depending on the day.)_

She had to _fight_ for _everything._

She fought to learn the drums, teaching herself when three separate teachers laughed her out of percussion classes, because they were for boys. _Fuck em’ all._

She fought her moral compass, when she would expertly shoplift food and medical supplies from the corner-shop outside their flat. _What?_ It wasn’t like they had any money to spare. Her little sister would have food to eat and antiseptic for her cuts, even if Roggie had to provide it herself.

She fought to get her and her sister to school each and every day, _Punchbag_ was very little help.

_(Sometimes she wondered what her mother was like before he’d gotten ahold of her. Perhaps they would’ve got on)._

She fought the boys who dared to tease her, the boys who got too close.

They called her a _frigid little prude_ and once when she dared to kiss a boy on the jungle gym _(she enjoyed it… so much. Perhaps too much. The media would love to call her a slut in the future, after all),_ he got a little too handsy and made the mistake of tugging a fistful of her hair.

In one fell swoop, she had him pinned to the ground and bleeding, breathing hard and her eyes turned animal-wild as he cried shaken tears.

The only boys who made fun of her after that, were the older boys who saw a little blonde pixie girl in a school uniform and needed a little adjustment on how they spoke to women. She fought to teach them that lesson. It was a hard one at first. But _Rogerina Meadow Taylor_ had been fighting all her life. She knew how to win.

She fought to be the smartest person in her whole class, her stupid first-name wouldn’t look so bad on the top of the class roster.

She fought to be the fastest runner on the playground. Nobody could beat her, nobody came close. Maybe it was because she was so small, a mix of genetics and the fact that she often wasn’t hungry where Clare was concerned.

_Roggie, I’m still hungry._

A packet of corner-store crisps and whatever they’d scavenged from the fridge hadn’t been enough. Roger had looked down at her own bag and slowly pushed it over.

_Here, have mine Clarie. I’m not hungry._

Her little sister was her everything. Clare with their matching blonde hair, _(though her sister’s was more of a golden blonde and hers was like a yellow highlighter),_ and crystalline blue eyes. _They_ were the only family they had. _Punchbag_ was only a human when _he_ wasn’t around to make her a doormat.

She fought her way out of that house.

She screamed like the _banshee_ she was.

Dressed in nothing but a nightie covered in her own blood and forever mussed hair in disarray, she’d held out a hand to her sister. _Clarie, come with me. We can leave this place. You and me against the world, remember?_

Her baby sister, eleven years old, clung to their _Punchbag._ Eyes full of tears as she _looked away._

Roger’s hand remained empty.

Neither of them left the house with her that night. Rain was pouring down and it was icy, tearing into her like a million knives. She had nothing when she left that house. The only person she’d ever loved had abandoned her. She never went back. But she learned that, while she was a _fighter,_ with blood on her hands and filling her mouth, congealed like jello.

That the world was full of _cowards._

_I will never need anyone._

It was her mantra as she slept in homeless shelters for years, on park benches, the tube or locked public bathrooms. She fought for everything she ever had. The clothes on her back, the grades she eventually got when she took her GSEs and got into Biology programs for uni. The life she made for herself from the pieces that she was given.

_I will never be a man’s Punchbag._

_I will never belong to anyone_

She flounced into a drummers’ call audition at Imperial College, certain that she would be the only girl there.

So she dressed to impress. Tiny shorts, a men’s leather jacket and tight leopard print top that left very little to the imagination, paired rather nicely with the near-constant black ribbons in her hair and pink trainers. _Well, she wasn’t exactly a proper girl, now was she? Of course she wasn’t going to dress like one!_

She was indeed the only girl there, she was the only _drummer_ there.

So after she’d tuned her drums and played a bit, she turned to the boys with that cocky _don’t-fuck-with-me_ smile on her face.

“So, have I got the gig?”

_I will never live to please anyone._

_Rogerina Meadow Taylor was a fighter._ Fighting like a venomous baby snake from day one, and sometimes… she fought for _others._ Whether they were capable of fighting for themselves or not.

So when she kicked off her heels and shoved her drums aside to charge to the front of the stage, drumsticks all ablaze. Zeroing in on the poor fool who dared to call Freddie a _Paki_ in front of her. She was suddenly glad for all those games of bar darts, for when she tossed her drumstick it hit a bullseye. Right onto his sorry ass left nipple.

_“Come up here and say that to me, you spineless son of a bitch!”_

_I will never love anyone._

“Thanks, Roggie.”

Freddie had laid his head on her shoulder, she could smell her own shampoo clinging to his hair and resisted the urge to call him a gutless thief. He pushed up her sunglasses to kiss her on the tip of her nose. “I love you, darling.”

She blushed to the tips of her ears.

“If you really want to show your appreciation, Freddie-poo, there’s somewhere else you should be kissing.” A playful flirty wink.

He laughed and it was so much better than the stricken look he’d been sporting after the crowd’s jeers.

_I will never rely on anyone._

She giggled up a storm as her drunk ass paraded herself down the street, her arm linked with Deaky’s. Her heels were so high, that she nearly toppled over onto her ass a dozen times. Poor Deaky just kept rolling his eyes and heaved her along. Finally giving up and carrying her over one shoulder when it all became too much.

Her only response was to wiggle her bum.

“Liking the view, Deaks?”

Her tongue lolled out of the corner of her mouth, he rolled his eyes, stifling a smile.

“Of course, Rog. How ever will I cope without it?”

She woke up the next morning, dressed in her favorite pair of pajamas, an couple of aspirin placed on her night table, and a fully-clothed Deaky asleep beside her.

“I didn’t want you to choke on your puke and die.”

_I will never be a victim again._

“Bri, oh God!”

She shrieked with laughter as his fingers laced up her sides. Tickling the living daylights out of her. The rest of the boys helped, and dear God, she thought she was going to _piss on herself._ The couch in their dressing room was impossibly lumpy, but she didn’t give a shit with the boys attacking her from all sides.

“I give in! I give in!” She screeched, tears rolling down her cheeks and ruining her good mascara.

 _“Say it!”_ He growled, well as threateningly as Brian _could_ growl.

She did the unthinkable, pouting all the way. “ _Fine! Penumbra_ is a word! Happy now?!”

Brian grinned with that smug face of his as he let her up. “Very.”

She accidentally kicked the _Scrabble_ board on her way.

“Oops.”

_I will always be alone._

She woke up with a familiar pain exploding inside her belly, like an atom bomb had just been detonated. The pain was throbbing inside of her like a second heartbeat, pain radiating down her fucking spine. Not her monthly, she knew what those pains were like and they were nothing compared to the agony of a raging kidney infection. Like the one she was currently sporting. Every breath was painful and she curled up into the fetal position, a low whine the only sound she was capable of making anymore. _Everything was the pain._

She didn’t know how long she laid there for, lost in a haze of her own agony. Unwilling and unable to do anything besides _breathe._

Then a rough series of knocks on her bedroom door.

“Roggie, _come on!_ We’re taking a cab to the studio in fifteen, get your arse _up!_ You and Freddie take the longest in the bathroom, so go get ready now!”

Deaky sounded harried, rushed.

It took all the strength she had to croak out. “Go without me! I’m sick!”

A choked off moan ending her sentence before she could. Every slight movement was another twist of the knife that had to be impaling her clean-through. Wishing that they’d never decided to share a flat to split the cost, with money they didn't have.

“ _Drunk_ doesn’t count as _sick,_ Rogerina.” He sounded particularly done with her this morning of all mornings. _“_ Get your arse in that cab or _you’re out of the band!”_

She knew he was kidding.

They threatened each other with that in jest every single damn day.

But in her sick, fever-addled mind, it wasn’t a chance she was willing to take.

Fifteen minutes later, she was indeed sitting in the cab. Squashed between the window and Freddie’s bony arse.

She was dressed like a fashion disaster. Wearing one of Brian’s huge beige grandfather sweaters over a pair of pink floral tights that probably belonged to Freddie and a familiar pair of pink trainers that hadn’t seen the light of day in _years_. Her hair was a fucking mess, sweat-damp and limp, tied back with a black ribbon. Her skin had a sheen of green nausea that makeup just couldn’t disguise and her lips were chapped beneath the gloss.

She tried to be as unassuming as he could, arms wrapped vice-tight around her stomach and letting the boys do their talking as the cab puttered along.

Perhaps that was her downfall.

Deaky, sitting across from her, kept giving her the most suspicious looks and after they hit a pothole and she whimpered, tiny and near-imperceptible. He took the opening to reach across and lay his cool palm flat across her forehead.

When he tried to take it away, she made a plaintive noise in the back of her throat and his hand slid down to cup her chin.

“Shite, you’re actually _sick_ , aren’t you?”

Guilt was shining all over Deaky’s features and she leaned back into herself once more, smiling all too-bright.

“Just a touch of a cold or something, love. I’m fine to practice.”

Freddie’s arm wrapped smoothly around the back of her head, and she turned to see him biting his bottom lip with concern. “You’re _trembling_ , darling. And you don’t feel right, like you’ve got a high fever.” Her fussy boys, _Jesus Christ._

“You could just say I’m _hot_ , Freddie-poo. No need to _disguise it.”_

They were so used to her comments by then, that they ignored it. 

“What hurts _,_ Rog?” Bri was peeking over Freddie and Rogerina Meadow Taylor rolled her eyes to the sky.

“My head from all your nagging.” An impish smile. “Seriously you _tossers_ , I’m fine. I get these all the time. I know my limits, okay?”

Did cabs always move so _slow?_ Was the traffic honestly that bad? Or had the all encompassing pain swallowed up her perception of time? Deaky was still giving her _The Look_ and her exhausted body just couldn’t handle it anymore. It was all she could do to remain upright in her seat, shoulders curling inwards despite herself.

“What’s wrong with your stomach _,_ Roggie?

She blinked. The fevered flush burning high in her cheeks.

“I think I’ve got another kidney infection.” She winced. “ _Clarie,_ I’ll be fine. You know I get them all the time.”

If felt like the pain was _pulsating_ inside of her.

She dimly heard Brian telling the cabbie: “So sorry for the trouble, but could you take us to the nearest hospital instead?”

She wasn’t fully cogent again until she was laying, half-curled up on a gurney in the hallway of a cluttered A&E. “I hate you lot.” Freddie was running his fingers through her hair, not minding the nasty sweat or how awful she must have looked. Brian was _massaging? wringing? playing?_ with her hand. And Deaky was up on the gurney with her, holding a basin in one hand just in case the food she hadn’t eaten for breakfast decided to make a reappearance. They all looked as if she was on her deathbed.

“We had to bring you, Rog. Something’s _wrong_ here.”

“You called me _Clarie._ ” John deadpanned. “Who’s that anyroad?”

“My baby sis.” She hummed. “Miss her.”

They’d shoved an IV into the crook of her arm to help with the pain. The good drugs always made her sleepy and loosened her tongue.

“ _Oh._ ” Freddie sounded surprised. “You’ve never mentioned her, lovie. In fact… I don’t think I’ve _ever_ heard you talk about your family before.” One look at Deaky and Brian proved that the same was true for them.

“Don’t need to,” She slurred, eyes at half-mast. “ _You’re my family_.”

_All I want, All I need._

“Surely there has to be someone else, darling.” _You’re our family too._ They never had to say it. What they had was special.

She shook her head into the starchy hospital gurney. “Clarie _stayed_. I left her in that house with _Punchbag and Him. I left her, Freddie. I left her.”_ She was crying. “He’s probably _killed_ them both.”

The only pain worse than the one in her belly was the one in her heart.

Her _penultimate_ sin.

“I left them to _die._ ”

She fell into a fitful sleep, crying herself down. Tears sticking her face to the sheets as they dried.

The boys looked over at each other. _It was the drugs. It was the fever. It was the pain._ She couldn’t really have meant what she was saying. But they still held her closer between them. She was their _girl._ The blonde she-demon with a temper hotter than fire itself and a venom-laced mouth to match. With a heart as good and gold as the hair on her head. They didn’t see a _fighter_ when they looked at her.

They didn’t see _Rogerina Meadow Taylor_ , a terrified angry little girl with blood gluing her mouth shut and blood dripping from her tiny fists.

They saw their _Roger, their Roggie_.

And it was all she ever wanted.

Even if she’d never thought it possible.

“You could’ve gotten _sepsis_ , Roger!”

Deaky berated her hours later, standing in front of her hospital bed with noodle arms crossed. Eyes alight with fire and brimstone. “Untreated kidney infections can cause _blood poisoning!_ Let alone the damage that’s already been done to them with all your _drinking! Christ, that’s it!_ No more smoking and no more drinking!”

She only laughed, a Marlboro hanging out the corner of her mouth.

“Like you’ll ever be able to _control me,_ Deaks.”

It was Brian who popped the ciggie out of her mouth with a look of utter disgust. “He can’t. But _all three of us_ can.”

She instantly bristled. “ _Yea?_ Well, I don’t need _three power-hungry blokes_ bossing me around!”

“What about _three worried brothers?”_

She stopped in her tracks and just blinked at Bri, mouth partly agape.

_I don’t need anyone._

_I will never need anyone._

**_So how is, that I came to need all of you?_ **

_I will never love anyone._

_I will always be alone._

**_Yet I am neither._ **

_Rogerina Meadow Taylor_ burst into tears. Surrounded by the three men who loved her most in the world. The girl who had never known a man’s love, had three brothers who loved her more than anything.

And for the first time in her life.

She unclenched her bloody fists and _surrendered._

  
-X-

  
_“No hope left, just pain_  
_Whiskey on his breath, violence in his brain_  
_Scared kids, with scarred minds_  
_Surrender reason, love is blind_  
_Surrender life, surrender love_  
_Surrender belief in God above_  
_Surrender hope, bow down to fear_  
_Surrender life, there ain't much here_

 _You can't hurt me now_  
_You can't hurt me now, I'm gone from you_  
_You can't hurt me now_  
_You can't reach me where I've gone to_  
_I surrender…”_

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to come harass me on tumblr!
> 
> @waywardrunawaycherryblossom
> 
> :D


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